History Repeats Itself
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: Huddy. Wilson's prying into both House's and Cuddy's past stirs up things that neither of them wanted to deal with.
1. Chapter 1

A/N Yeah, I'm working on An Old Married Couple, but I got bitten hard by the Huddy bug, so I figured I might as well write it while I plot out to write myself out of the corner I wrote myself into.  


* * *

"_You know exactly how it would go. It'd start off exciting, we'd get caught up in the novelty and the hostility and the forbiddeness, and then flirtatious hosility would just be hostility and the inability to open up and it's no longer exciting it's just frustrating and the inevitable blow up and the recriminations and we don't talk for two months..." _

"You and Cuddy went to college together, didn't you?" House looked up from his Gameboy to see Wilson lurking in his doorway.

"I was in med school, she was an undergrad."

"But you knew each other." House put his Gameboy down. Wilson had that tone of voice that meant his friend was up to something, and House wasn't entirely sure what.

"In passing." Sort of. Kind of. Not really.

"Didn't run in the same circles?" No, they ran in exactly the same circles, that had been the problem.

"Like I said, I was already in med school, she was an undergrad." Wilson had been to college, he would know that the graduate circles were often different from those working on their bachelors.

"So you two never really talked-"

"If you're trying to get any information about any sort of a history we've had together, there is none." Wilson had been pushing them since Cuddy had mentioned that she'd 'never thought of House in that way.' Because from her candid admission, he knew that there was something _more _there. And it wasn't something that either party was blind to. Simply one that they chose to ignore.

"I don't believe it."

"Believe what you want. There's nothing there." Wilson sighed, walking back out the door, leaving House staring aimlessly at what had been an intense round of Mr. Driller, now just a single pixelated character being crushed under piles of bricks. He sighed, and got up from his desk, making it down to the bottom floor.

He shoved the door to Cuddy's office open, and barged in, collapsing in the desk across from her.

They sat there, staring at one another for a long minute before she finally broke the silence. "What are you doing here?"

"What exactly have you been saying to Wilson?"

"What?" Cuddy asked, genuinely confused as to why House was asking.

"Wilson doesn't just show up asking about our days in Michigan for no reason." He cocked an eyebrow at her, and glared, waiting for her to cave. "What did you say to him?"

"I didn't say anything to him."

"You had to say _something _ to get him questioning whether we knew each other in college."

"What did you tell him?" Cuddy countered and he shrugged.

"That I was a med student, you were in undergrad, we knew who the other one was, that was about it." Cuddy sighed, and rubbed her eyes, looking rather tired. "What did you tell him?" She thought back, trying to remember everything that she had told Wilson, and her face fell. "What?"

"He asked if I had ever considered a relationship with you. I said that it would end badly."

"And from that he managed to infer that we knew each other twenty some odd years ago?"

"I said that it would go from flirtatious to flirtatious hostility to just hostility and frustration, and things would end, and we would wind up not speaking to each other for two months-"

"Great, so you told him everything he needs to know to continue bugging us about _this-_" He gestured to the space between them "For the next two decades. Way to keep your mouth shut."

"And what does it matter if he knows?"

"It matters because I'm never going to hear the end of it. You know how Wilson gets when he decides something is in my best interests. Whether or not it actually is in my best interests becomes entirely irrelevant. And now he's going to assume we had a _thing_ in college." Cuddy rolled her her eyes.

"And we didn't?" She didn't think she'd ever seen the level of emotion in House before, but whatever it was-it wasn't anger or rage, she was used to those-and this new emotion scared her.

"What we had was a mistake. And I believe one of _your _terms and conditions for hiring me was that that mistake was ignored." He could see the flash of something on her face-he wasn't sure if it was hurt, or anger, or what.

"A mistake? That's what you call six months of-"

"Sleeping around behind your boyfriend's back?" House suggested, and she glared at him.

"I broke up with Nick before anything-"

"Which is why you were insisting on the only time I ever spent in my house was when you were in my bed." Cuddy opened her mouth, before she shut it again.

"Can we have this conversation another time, like when there aren't donors standing outside my office door?"

"Great. Dinner tonight? That way we can scream at each other over a four course meal."

"House-"

"I'll pick you up at seven."

"House!" The tone was much sharper.

"Well, we obviously need to plot how to keep Wilson out of both of our private lives. And I don't know about you but I do my best plotting when I have food in me. You're buying, you pick the place." Cuddy sighed, and went back to working, hoping that House wasn't serious.


	2. Parasite

A/N - provided I'm not pulling a Dr. House today and wind up sober enough to write, expect another chapter of this and of An Old Married Couple later. But if I don't, enjoy this.  


* * *

Cuddy hadn't seriously expected House to pick her up for dinner. So when she had finally made it home she relaxed into the couch with a warm cup of tea, wanting nothing more than to take a shower and go to sleep, she hadn't expected the knock on her door that came promptly at seven. She opened it to find House standing there, leather jacket on, helmet in hand. "What are you doing here?" She asked him, and he held out the spare helmet to her.

"We're going to dinner, to take care of that pesky Wilson problem."

"We are?" Cuddy asked, slightly shocked.

"Yes. Let's go." Cuddy stayed in her doorway, refusing to move.

"Even if I were to go, it wouldn't be on _that_." she pointed to the motorcycle sitting on the curb in front of her house.

"What's wrong with the bike?"

"Hmm, I don't know, maybe the fact that it's a giant death machine?" House sighed, and reached past her to set the spare helmet down on the table just inside her door that held all of her mail.

"Fine then. But this just confirms you're paying." Cuddy rolled her eyes, and pulled her keys from the key rack next to her.

"I thought it was common courtesy for the man to pay for dinner."

"This isn't a date, it's a plotting session. If it were a date I'd have dressed up and brought flowers, and actually picked the resteraunt, rather than dealing with whatever shitty place you're going to pick." Cuddy locked the door behind her as she stepped out of the house and down to her car, opening both doors and allowing him to slide into the passenger seat.

"Capuanos?" She suggested. It was the closest restaurant to her house, and she didn't feel like driving halfway across town to go eat something.

"Chinese?" House countered, and she glared at him.

"I thought I got to pick the restaurant?"

"You do, but if it doesn't start with Little, and end in Sezchuan, then we're going to be doing this plotting session in your house." Of course House would force her into driving someplace just because it was what he wanted. That was just the way House worked. Let someone think they had the upper hand, and then manipulate them from below. She pulled out of her street and headed down the road, secretly enjoying the fact that House was grabbing the handle above the door slightly harder than would look comfortable as she rocketed around a corner.

She walked in to the dimly lit rester aunt, not caring how long it took House, and started perusing the menu before he even limped in. The triple delight was looking awfully good, but then again, so was the sweet and sour chicken. She ignored his glare as he sat down, and poured herself a glass of green tea. "So, why exactly do you need to plan the downfall of my head of oncology?" She asked, munching on one of the fried noodles that sat on the table.

"Because he's _prying_ that's why." House flagged down a nearby waiter before he even looked at the menu. He ordered General Tso's and a Pepsi, and she went with her choice of the triple delight, with an order of steamed dumplings that were intended to be shared. She had a feeling she'd be lucky if she managed to get one.

"He asked you a question about college. Isn't that what friends do, talk to each other about their pasts?"

"He knows all about my college days."

"But he didn't know that you knew me." Cuddy pointed out the giant glaring gap in what House had to have told Wilson.

"Well, you've been mentioned, just not by name. It was kind of hard to not mention the fact that the only girls that were ever at the house I practically lived at were the girlfriends of the two residents."

"You did live there, you just legally couldn't have your name on the lease." House nodded, she was right.

"And of course you got mentioned in the various and sundry stories that were told."

"Like?" Cuddy asked, slightly afraid of what would come up.

"The day that Harry from downstairs got kicked out for lighting the dumpster on fire. Or when we took the hammer to the drywall all over the kitchen. Or that time when we broke the banister off the stairs, or when you knocked an entire case of beer out the window-" Cuddy rolled her eyes. Of course the stories would be of druken, debauched nights. They were boys after all. "-The time when Nick's girlfiend decided to try pot for the first time and coughed so hard she puked-" Cuddy felt the first tinge of red creeping up her cheeks.

"If I recall correctly the unnamed third roommate nearly did the same thing, despite being experienced." House merely shrugged and poached a dumpling off the silver tray that sat in front of him.

"You've honestly never mentioned that you pretty much lived with me in college to anyone?"

"You already get enough special treatment for being a damn good doctor no matter how insane you drive everyone else. I don't need anyone to think I give you special privileges just because we knew each other twenty years ago. The only one who knows that we knew each other at Michigan who knows you work for me now is my mother." House fought back the cold shudder at the thought of Mrs. Cuddy, who the first time the woman had met the boys that owned the house had torn them a new one for the state of their living accommodations.

Cuddy took that moment to poach another dumpling before House could eat them all. "Let me guess, she called you nuts for hiring me?"

"No, she said that she felt you were the most upstanding one from 312." House was trying very very hard not to laugh with food in his mouth, which instead caused him to double over in a sort of half-laughing, half-choking thing for a good five minutes before he finally managed to regain control of his own body.

"I was the most upstanding?"

"Well, you were in med school, your bedroom had the fewest amount of holes and the least amount of paraphernalia in it-"

"Only because all my damage and all my stash was in the living room." He cut his dumpling in half with his fork. "So, Wilson." He studied the pork and chicken filler inside for a long moment drizzling the sauce over top of it. "We need a unified front, so that he can't find the holes in both of our stories." Cuddy nodded. This was House the tactician, this was the House she hired. This was the man who in college had been able to spin up a completely believable story whenever the cops showed up that resulted in everyone walking away without any incident.

"Well, he knows we knew each other, and he knows that I know exactly what would happen if things were to progress."

"You've seen how my other relationships have gone. Use that as an excuse."

"The only outlier is Stacy." She pointed out, choosing to look at her plate rather than the look House always got whenever his ex was mentioned. "All the rest of them ended the same way." House nodded, taking a long sip of his drink. "But knowing Wilson he will find out that we pretty much lived in the same place. Even though your bed was technically down the road, and I technically lived in the dorm." Both of them traded knowing grins.

"Yes, because your parents couldn't bear to think you were actually living in the crackhouse." Cuddy couldn't help but laugh at the moniker given the apartment that had been shared.

"If it wasn't for Michelle and myself, the place would have never been cleaned-whenever we were there it wasn't nearly as bad." She paused as the main course came out. "If he asks, you were the cool grad student that used to buy us booze. But the question now is how did you come to know us?"

"The truth. You were dating my drug dealer's roommate."

"Yeah, because he'll honestly believe that I was living with someone who made their college tuition selling drugs."

"If he knew half of what you did in college, he'd have a heart attack."

"It'd get him off our back, now wouldn't it?" The rest of the meal was spent exchanging quips about their time spent in the company of the same people, pointing out what they knew everyone else had gone on to do. Nick had gone on to be a wrestling coach and biology teacher, just like he'd planned, and Dave had cleaned himself up after a stint for possession with intent to distribute just after college, now working in middle management for some firm out in the midwest.

The waiter asked if they wanted any desert and Cuddy declined, despite House's protests. "I have a cheesecake sitting in my freezer waiting for me." She pointed out, and House merely rolled his eyes, but pulled out his wallet anyway. Cuddy quirked a brow when it was his credit card, not hers sliding in with the bill.

"You came up with a decent plan. Give him enough to know that we knew each other, and hated each other then. You were the insufferable girlfriend of the man who's home I passed out in every night, you hated me because you'd always trip over me because I never actually made it to the spare bed, and always left the place trashed, I hated you because you were always on my back about the fact that I was always passed out in your house. The hatred hasn't changed."

"And we cleverly avoid mentioning whatever it was that we had."

"What we had was a mistake." The same words he'd used earlier, and they evoked the same amount of hurt this time around, even though she wouldn't let him see it. She had thought it was six months of...heaven was too strong of a word, but she'd loved it.

They were silent for the entire drive back, until Cuddy pulled her car up into the driveway. "I believe you said something about cheesecake?" House questioned as he followed her up the walk to her door.

"I believe it said it was calling _my _name."

"I paid for dinner, after making you think you were going to." Cuddy sighed. How was it that this man managed to worm under her skin, no matter how many times she tried to tell him no, no matter how many times she attempted to push him away. He was a goddamned parasite, is what he was. Every time you thought you got rid of it, another larvae would hatch, and repeat the infection all over again.


	3. A Big Mistake

It was two slices of cheesecake and three glasses of wine later that Cuddy finally broke the silence that had settled on them. She had House in her house, and somehow, it didn't feel incredibly awkward. No, rather, it felt almost like he was at home. Then again, House could make himself at home anywhere. The talk of college days just reinforced that idea. The number of mornings _she_ had been the unfortunate one to come rescue him from wherever he'd wound up spending the night just because _she_ was the responsible one who would always play the designated driver, and who was always up early enough to not be really awoken by his phone calls to come save him before Cinderella turned back into the ugly stepsister. "Way to make yourself comfortable." She commented from her spot curled up in a chair across the room.

"You let me in, you served me cheesecake, and you're giving me wine, I take that as an open invitation to make myself right at home." For added emphasis he kicked his legs up on her coffee table, shoes and all. She winced at the sight of muddy shoes on her table, and he was considerate enough to notice and take them off before putting his feet right back. "So how about something else for desert?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she rolled her eyes. She knew him well enough to know what was a real pass at her, and what was simply House being House.

"Funny, considering that you were calling what happened the last time you got something more for desert a mistake." She hadn't meant for it to sound as venomous as it was, but House felt the barb full well.

"What else would you have called it?" He asked, more to his plate than to her.

"Mistakes are what happen when you wake up the morning going 'what the hell just happened'. Six months of that is something more than a mistake."

"Giagantic fuck up?" House suggested instead, and she fought the urge to toss her glass at him. It would be such a pity to waste such good wine on pouring it over his head. When he saw her glare, he backed off the sarcasm slightly. "I was sleeping with my roommate's girlfriend. He was starting to catch on-he wasn't entirely thick you know. The same nights I'd spend at the place that actually had my name on it were the same ones you'd spend all night in the library? When usually I'd be happy when you weren't around to go playing nanny over all of us, when we could smoke inside, and not worry about you wagging your fingers when the bong came out? He was dumb, he wasn't blind."

"I'd broken up with him at that point-"

"You were still staying in his bed. I don't know what planet you come from where that means that you're no longer an item, but where I'm from, living with someone means that you're dating them. And I wasn't going to lose my friend and my drug dealer because I wanted to get laid."

"So that's all it was to you? A six month long mistake?" House took a long drink of his wine, and ran a hand across his stubbled chin. No, it was easier to tell himself that it had been a mistake, that it wasn't supposed to have happened. It was easier to ignore the fact that if they'd kept it up much longer that he would have actually developed real feelings. And it was easier for him to decide that it was a gigantic mistake, and that it should have never happened than it was for him to recognize that if he had continued the act that he would have wound up fighting Nick over who she deserved more in her life.

And because if it was based entirely on who she deserved more, Nick would have won hands down. "Yes." He replied, not caring what her response to his comment would be. It would be better to bury this all now, make her hate him, than it would be to risk things starting anew again, because he knew that it wouldn't work. She knew it wouldn't work. They both knew it wouldn't work, and they were both going to avoid it.

"Now I know why Stacy left." She hadn't intended to be quite so cruel, but if he was going to fight unfairly, so would she.

"You have no right-" She cut him off before he could finish.

"Do you consider all your relationships mistakes? Because you can't bear the thought of failing at something? You can't accept the fact that you fucked up every relationship you were in, so you act as though those relationships were never supposed to happen. You pretend as though no one else has ever mattered to you, because it's easier to deal with than accepting that you fail at relationships. You fail at people. You fail at every single thing you do except solve a puzzle. Humans aren't puzzles. Relations aren't puzzles, life isn't a puzzle, and you fail at it." Twenty years of supressed anger at the way that he'd left her in her car one snowy Februrary morning were finally bubbling up. She hadn't even realized she got to her feet until she downed the rest of her wine glass and was walking to the kitchen to get another.

"Hey woman, get me a burr." She closed her eyes at the mock-accent, and attempted to count to ten in her mind before she reached into her fridge and pulled out one of the sparse cans of bud light that she kept in there specifically for guests she didn't like.

"Stand up." The words were a sharp command, but he held her glare for a moment until she walked over, smacked his feet off the table, and pulled him roughly up by the arm. He opened his mouth to complain, but it was quickly drowned out. "You wanted me to get you a beer? Here, have a beer." She jerked him away from the rug and onto the hardwood as she strained to pour the beer over his head. She tossed the empty can at his chest for good measure, and he held her glare when she finally retreated back to the kitchen, golden liquid dripping off the end of every single hair. "Sexist bastard." She muttered underneath her breath as she poured himself another glass of wine, fully expecting to hear him limping out of her house.

Instead she felt-or rather smelled, as he reeked disticntly like beer now-his presence behind her. "Don't make me ruin that pretty white blouse of yours."

"Don't you dare even think about it." She told him as his hands reached on either side of her, pinning her to the counter. She tried to roll over to push him off, but he merely forced his body weight against her. She shuddered slightly at the contact with cool, damp skin. Instead a hand reached past hers for the hose that was supposed to make rinsing dishes much easier. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, refusing to let it go.

His left hand, the one that was not currently pinned down was moving as well, and she didn't get the chance to see it, until she felt it on her chest, gently cupping one breast. She bit back her urge to groan at the feeling, not wanting him to know that she enjoyed it. He knew she enjoyed it, and that was what bothered her. It moved from cupping to stroking, and she felt herself relax against him, ever so slightly. The height difference meant that she couldn't see his self-satisfied smirk as she relaxed her grip on his wrist ever so slightly. It was just enough for him to wrench his arm free, and soak her completely with the hose. "What?" He asked at her shriek of protest. "I didn't ruin it." He didn't even pretend to hide the way he was staring at the now sheer material covering her bra.

She shoved him away, and glared at him. "Out. Now." Was all she managed to say, and he could tell that if he didn't leave she was about to get _ very_ irate. He took this as his cue to get out, and didn't even stop to collect the helmet that had long since been left on the table by the door, instead hurrying out to his waiting bike, not wanting to know what evil plans she was plotting once the door closed.


	4. The Mistakes of the Past

I'm really not happy with this chapter, but I couldn't think of any way to describe the past without the hated //FLASHBACK//, because flashbacks never flow well into a story.  


* * *

Cuddy had long since changed out of the soaking wet clothes that she had been wearing, and was instead curled around a hot mug of tea as she sat on her couch, staring at, but not watching, the television, replaying the events of the night in her mind.

They'd had such a civilized dinner. He'd even paid. They'd come back to her house for desert and nothing more. No plans of more, and even the blatant pass hadn't been in much more than jest. And then she'd pushed, and he'd gotten defensive, and it had ended. And he'd manipulated her yet again. It was a chess match, and she was perpetually four moves behind. He was able to see the game as it was going to unfold, and she was stuck in using tried and true gambits that he knew how to outplay.

He knew that there was still something there, he had to have known. He knew it was why he could pull off things that would get him fired for blatant sexual harassment in other jobs, and she'd merely shrug it off. Why it was that he knew that a single hand could get her to let her guard down enough for him to spring to the attack. Why they both knew that flirtatious banter would lead to nothing but trouble. Why he kept pushing her away, because they both knew that it would end the same way it had the last time, and that this time ignoring each other for the months that followed would be impossible, as they were forced to work together.

This wasn't college, where he could find himself someone else with an endless supply of marijuana to buy, and she could bury herself in studying to forget about each other, and never have to see one another. She'd moved out soon after the "mistake" as he was so fond of calling it, and she honesty didn't know if he'd even returned to the place after the "mistake" had been called such. This wasn't twenty years in the past when they hadn't planned on ever seeing anyone they went to college with ever again. This wasn't college where they could blame the whole thing on being young and stupid-they were older now, and should know better.

Was that really all that there had been between them? Just the recklessness of youth? It had felt so _right_ though. As though it was what really mattered. It had been a mistake, she supposed, to start whatever it was they had. She'd noticed him, from the moment he started hanging around. First looking for Dave, always slightly shifty just because of his purpose for being there. The casual eye over everyone in the house, to see if anyone was going to rat on the med student. Then the easy way he'd accepted when Nick had asked if he could pick up beer for the house.

And even when he had been looking slightly nervous, there was an arrogant swagger about him. What had started as him buying a few cases of beer when he'd stop by pretty much weekly, occasionally staying long enough to share his most recent purchases with the other men in the house-she'd almost always politely decline, she did have her studies to worry about after all, had slowly turned into him spending more and more time there. The occasional case of beer had turned into buying the beer for the rest of the house, had turned into him supplying parties, and bringing some of his med school friends along.

And she'd always noticed him. The bright blue eyes and the sandy colored hair, the cocksure attitude, and the indifference to what anyone thought. She'd had a boyfriend, she was happy with Nick, even if she didn't love him. He was good to her, and she was willing to deal with his drinking, if only because the worst he did when he drank was fall down the stairs, or punch holes in the wall for fun. He was a nice guy, and she hadn't pretended that it would ever be something that would last past her undergrad. But Greg-he hadn't been known as House then, he'd been the one to catch her eye from the first time he leaned against the top of the stairs, waiting for Dave to emerge with a sandwich bag full of green plant matter.

When Greg-it was weird to think of him that way, as he had become so ingrained in her mind as House-had pretty much moved in, she hadn't known what to think. He was challenging, always willing to debate with her, and she liked that. It was something that Nick had never been able to do. That, and Greg had been willing to mock her when she missed something on her homework, and continue mocking her until she got it right.

He kept a protective eye on her, when Nick found himself far too wasted to do it himself-taking up the role as the man of the house, forcing people away when they'd had too much, preventing as much damage as possible that wasn't inflicted by the people actually on the lease or himself, and she'd looked up to him as a role model and protector. Sure, he was unconventional. Sure, someone who spent most of his time with a pipe full of weed sitting in front of a typewriter knocking out papers wasn't a good role model, but he was what she wanted to be-a damn good med student destined to be a damn good doctor.

Nick hadn't even noticed them growing closer over the months, he just assumed that they were getting along, and was glad about it. It was only after Nick had been forcefully dragged to bed after falling down the stairs for the third time in the same night, and breaking his hand on the wall that she had finally kissed Greg. It hadn't been intended as what it was, it'd been intended as a 'thank-you-for-taking-care-of-my-boyfriend' kiss, but something happened, and it had turned into a 'much-more-than-that' kiss, had turned into the first night Greg had spent the night in his own house instead of the spare bedroom in over two months.

And they'd pointedly ignored each other for the next three weeks, with her and Nick drifting further and further apart, until finally it had all broken down, and she'd kissed Greg again. This time in thanks for him pointing out a glaring error in her chemistry homework, and fixing it for her, with no malice and no sarcastic comment about how she was wrong. She'd just been grateful to be spared the lecture that he usually gave when he checked her homework. Between Nick and school, she'd had a rough week. And that had turned into the second time they'd spent the night at his place.

Which had turned somehow into a semi-regular and then a regular thing. And just when she was starting to really feel comfortable around him, just when she was feeling as though she could open up to him in ways that she'd never felt comfortable with Nick, he'd pulled away, and completely ignored her. He'd found somewhere else to buy drugs from, citing better prices for better product, and stopped hanging around with them. They found someone else to buy beer, and she'd found herself back in her dorm, purposely avoiding everything and anything to do with that house, for fear of running into him again. Because she didn't know whether she'd hate him or miss him more.

There hadn't been much conversating between them then, just as there was little between them now. They had had the most frustrating relationship then, and it wasn't much better now. Every time she'd drop hints about something, he'd purposely ignore them. She knew that he got the hint loud and clear, and was doing everything but that. She'd make it very obvious that she'd want to actually go out to dinner with him, and he'd purposely avoid it. The flirtatious hostility had turned to frustration, as she pulled back in favor of her studies whenever he'd actually want to be affectionate. Both of them had just grown increasingly upset with each other until finally he just dropped her off at her dorm one day, told her to get out of the car, and drove off, ignoring all further attempts at contact.

It'd happened once already, she'd been stupid enough to think she was actually falling for someone like Greg-no, that was when he had started becoming House in her mind-it was easier to separate him as just another med student than it was for her to deal with him as a person. And they'd parted ways, avoiding each other for the next two months, before they'd accept that they were on the same campus, and that it was just polite to say hi to one another when they'd find themselves in the anatomy labs at the same time-him to mess with the corpses, her to actually learn something about them.

And then he'd graduated, and she'd gone on to med school, and they'd forgotten about each other, until she found herself with a department looking for a head, and he found himself desperate for someplace that would hire such a maverick. They'd never once mentioned it, but it had been understood that the past was just that, the past, and it would never be spoken of. He'd been the one to break that understanding, mentioning what they'd had in the midst of a heated argument. And she'd lied for him-because it was _him_ not because it was one of her doctors. And now they were teetering on the edge of what would be very bad for both of them. They were teetering on the edge of making the same mistake again. Maybe he was right, what they had _had_ been a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen then, and it certainly wasn't supposed to happen now. That's what this night had confirmed, anything between them had always been, and always would be a mistake.


	5. Fuckups of the Past

A/N and the relationship as told from House's point of view. Stacy and Cuddy bear too much of a resemblence for me NOT to point it out, after all.  


* * *

The sound of a motorcycle was the only thing to break the otherwise still silence that had descended upon Clarksville Road. It's a treacherous path, but he knew it well, was intimately familiar with all its curves. A long lost lover, that no matter how long he was apart from it, he knew exactly where each bend in the road was. A brief pause at the corner, looking across at the pond, and the home purposely decorated to look like something from a bad Christmas movie, brown with white droopy trim that looked like icing.

He needed to clear his head, and the best way to do that was to just _ride._ Just get out and be one with the road. That was why he had a motorcycle. With nothing but the sound of the wind and the roar of his bike, he didn't have to worry about anyone or anything else. And at this hour of the night, there was no one else on the road.

There was a slight chill running through him from where the full can of beer had soaked through his clothes and into his skin, but the jacket made it somewhat easier to take. What_ had_ happened earlier? They had been a mistake-he had told her as such. He'd nearly lost two very good friends because he couldn't keep his hands off of one of their girlfriends. It had been a mistake to go after her, and it had been a mistake for her to respond. They were never supposed to have been anything.

It wasn't supposed to have been one night, much less six months of sleeping around with one another, always on the sly so that Nick would never get wind of it. Cuddy could have tried all she wanted to pretend that she was single, that she hadn't been dating Nick when she started seeing him, but they both knew it was a lie. Nick had been right for her, and she had known it.

He was the rebel, the one that someone like Cuddy should have looked at and promptly written off, but she hadn't. He did nothing to deserve her. He mocked her, scorned her, insulted her. He made snide comments about her mistakes in her work, and corrected them for her with an arrogant air. He challenged every one of her beliefs, shook her faith in herself and humanity, and rather than attempt to force him out of her life, she'd instead grown closer to him.

_That_ was what puzzled him most about Lisa Cuddy. That no matter how much he tried to make her hate him, she continued to care. No matter how badly he tried to shove her away, she always stood her ground and refused to move. The complete opposite of Wilson in a sense. He forced Wilson away, and Wilson came back like a little lost puppy dog, wanting love and affection. He forced Cuddy away, and she refused to move.

The bigger difference between them was that he forced Cuddy away out of fear. Fear that things would get real between them, and he'd fuck up. Fear that he'd actually allow someone to get close to him, and they'd screw him over the same way Stacy had. That had been the last straw for him and relationships. Although he wasn't entire sure if that was really it. Stacy had made him happy, but she'd never felt like the one. It was why he'd never really gone out and bought a ring, despite endless prodding from all persons but Stacy. It was why he never really wanted to marry her-she'd never felt like the person he deserved to marry.

She'd been long legs, and dark hair, and a nice rack, and she'd challenged him and fought back, refusing to budge, but she had never felt like _the one._ He allowed himself to close his eyes as he pulled to a stop sign on some side road, not even knowing where he was. Somewhere near Cranbury, he knew that-at least he recognized the name of the road he was on, and recognized the intersection coming up. He hung a hard right onto Edinburgh road, knowing that it would lead him out behind the park, and he'd swing around that, cut through Hamilton, and return home. He plotted his route in a back corner of his mind so that he wouldn't have to think about where he was going. His body and his bike would eventually take him home, leaving his mind free to think of other things.

Even though he didn't want to think about other things. Like how Stacy had felt more like the next-best-thing than a proper relationship. He loved her, and she had loved him, but it was a weird feeling, knowing that the woman that you loved was a replacement for something that he couldn't have. What he didn't want to think about was who she was a replacement for. Because they simply weren't meant to be. Just because Stacy beared a resemblance to another leggy brunette with a nice rack that he knew, well, that was just because he had a type. He had a thing for brunettes with nice racks who were mentally challenging.

Cuddy simply had fit into that type. So of course he'd noticed her when he'd dropped by to see Dave for some business dealings. She fit his type, and he couldn't resist pointing out that she'd mixed up the steps of mitosis. Biology had always been her weak point, she'd always complained about the amounts of memorization of things that had no point to her-like the different classes of plants. Fungi and bacteria, and living breathing organisms concerned her-and fungi only in the sense that it had a bad habit of multiplying in the body if allowed to.

And of course he looked after her on nights when Nick was so blindingly drunk he couldn't even remember his own name. She was a lady of the house after all, and seeing as he had moved in without even asking to, he felt it was something of a responsibility of his. Making sure that he took care of Nick whenever the man would fall down the stairs and pop his knee out, screaming in pain that _someone _needed to do _something_ because he was in agony, and whimpering on the bed. And then making sure that Nick's girlfriend didn't find herself manhandled by any of the other drunks in the party.

It wasn't because he cared about her, but because he cared about his friends.

When she'd kissed him after he had tucked Nick away into bed one night-no different from any of the others, when they happened to party, it was always hard-he'd been surprised. But he was also a college-aged male, and anyone with tits that nice kissing him would cause him to kiss back regardless of who those tits belonged to. He hadn't meant to ignore the rest of the party and drag her down the stairs with him and down the street to where he technically had a name on a lease and a mattress, it had just happened.

And they had woken up the next morning, both of them swearing that it wouldn't happen again, that it had been a foolish mistake. Even she had admitted that it was a mistake. The first time at least. And they'd avoided each other, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, refusing to talk beyond what would make things look normal. He refused to stop hanging out at Nick and Dave's, because he had a good thing going with his friends.

Yes, it had been a mistake. That had led to another mistake-this time on her homework-and his mistake of correcting without his usual scathing comments. Which had led to the mistake of her kissing him, and his mistake of suggesting they go back to his place, again. Which had turned into a giant six-month long mistake, where she claimed that she and Nick were through, and he was willing to believe it, because it was easier than accepting that he was sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend. Not just sleeping with, but developing a relationship with.

They'd fight, they'd banter, they'd snap at each other, and point out each other's flaws. But he refused to admit that they had a _thing_. A thing implied taking her out to dinner-which she would always hint that she wanted, but he always refused to attend. He liked whatever it was that they had-and changing it would jeopardize it. It was flirtatious hostility-they hated each other, but loved the sex. At least that was how he had tried to rationalize it. And somewhere he had just snapped, because he knew that if it continued that it wouldn't be flirtatious hostility, it would be flirtatious caring, and that was something he never wanted to get into. Because whenever he actually attempted to give her what he thought she wanted, whenever he actually tried to show affection, although he wasn't very good at it, she'd dive further into her textbooks.

And she had grown frustrated at it-like he'd wanted her to. The same frustration that he felt when he tried to do something sweet and she ignored it. He had pushed her away, and this time she hadn't stood her ground. He had simply gotten out of the car one morning when she had driven her to class, said goodbye in a very firm tone that had meant that he wasn't just saying that he was going to class, but that he was going to class and whatever it was between them was over, and waked off leaving her behind.

He'd told Dave that there was someone in one of his lectures that had stuff that was far better than what he was getting, for the same price, and he'd put them in contact if Dave wanted it, claimed that he never really got any work done when there was a fridge full of beer and a house full of potheads, and threw his few possessions back into his bag, and left the place before she'd gotten back from class. And ignored anything to do with her for the next few months until they were forced to be on decent terms. And by decent, it was only meant that they weren't supposed to kill each other.

He'd made a mistake, and he'd fixed it in the best way that he knew how. He ignored it and pretended as though it never happened. He didn't solve problems, he made mistakes and covered them up. He was a bureaucrat at heart-whenever he fucked up he swept it under the rug and hoped that it wouldn't be noticed. He didn't have any problems in his life, he simply acted as though the few things he really, truly, fucked up simply hadn't been intended to be and ignored them.

Which was precisely what he was going to do now. Because now was the same as twenty years ago. And he'd already made the mistake once, he most certainly wasn't going to make the same mistake again. He ignored his mistakes, but always swore never to repeat them. And he wouldn't.


	6. Wilson Interferes

A/N yeah, this is the hump chapter I think, the one that refuses to write, and you have to force it out, and it winds up so much worse than the ones surrounding it, but now that it's done, the story can improve.  


* * *

It's funny, how two people who are pointedly avoiding each other wind up drawing more attention to themselves than if they had simply gone about their day when their day normally involves avoiding one another. Wilson had been the first to notice, perhaps because of House's insistence that they _not_ go out for lunch that day, seeing as going out meant that they'd have to walk right past Cuddy's office. Not to mention the way that House was pointedly avoiding anything that could possibly get him in enough trouble to merit a trip to the principals office.

And when Cuddy opted not to come up to chew out House for the six weeks of paperwork that hadn't even been started on, his suspicions were confirmed. They were avoiding each other, and they might as well have been wearing glaring neon signs that said "Ask us about our (lack of) relationship!" But Wilson held his tongue, knowing both of them better than to mention it this early on in the day. No, this was a conversation to be had when walking out to cars in the bitter early December wind.

Which he did, as soon as he saw her making her way outside, fighting off the wind from the impending nor'easter heading their way. "Cuddy!"He called from halfway across the parking lot, and the slow clip-clop of heels on ice paused, if only momentarily.

"What do you want? And if it involves someone whose name is a synonym for abode, I don't want to hear a word about it."

"What the hell happened?"

"None of your business." She had reached her car, and had set her bag down, turning to face him long enough to emphasize her point with a glare.

"You ignored the fact that he hasn't done paperwork in months, that he sent a clinic patient home in tears-"

"He's House, that's what he does. He screws up, acts as though it's never his fault, and leaves other people to clean up after him. And I'm not in the mood to go cleaning up after him right now, it can wait until the urge to wring his scrawny little neck has subsided."

"What did he do now?"

"What doesn't he do? He's House, that's reason enough to want to kill him on a good day."

"He had to do something between yesterday and today-"

"Fine you want to know what he did? He turned a civilized dinner-that was supposed to be about how to stop _you_ from meddling in our personal lives into a fight, because that's exactly what he does. He's not content with leaving well enough alone, he has to push the limits until someone snaps." Wilson had unconciously backed away from the sharp tone in Cuddy's voice, afraid that there would be a resounding slap following her words. Luckily, the diatribe was only followed by the sharp slamming of a car door, and the screech of a car backing out of a spot with slightly more force than was strictly necessary.

Wilson stood there, the snow kicking up around his pants, watching the small luxury car make the hard right onto Princeton-Plainsboro Road, heading in the vague direction of Plainsboro proper-the long way home for her, technically, but it was avoiding the traffic of Route one in rush hour. He sighed, and turned around, walking back inside and up to the fourth floor, stopping not in his office, but in House's.

"Why are you avoiding Cuddy?" He asked House, not even bothering with anything resembling a nicety.

"I'm not avoiding her." House didn't even look up from the gameboy in his lap.

"Yes you are. I heard you took her to dinner last night-" The gameboy landed on the desk with something between a clack and a thud.

"I didn't take her to dinner, and it wasn't dinner, it was a plotting session. On how to stop _you_ from interfering with _our_ lives."

"She said you turned it into a fight." There was a bit of a bitter, humorless chuckle from the other side of the room.

"Of course she did. She tell you that she decided to beer-batter me before tossing me in the deep fryer? You know how hard it is to wash twelve ounces of beer out of your hair?"

"You don't have enough hair to wash out. Besides, you obviously had to have done something to warrant her deciding to pour beer on you."

"I asked her for a beer!" Wilson rolled her eyes. "Besides, she started it. She mentioned she-who-must-not-be-named." Wilson sighed. Of _course_ that would set House off.

"You know you two _are_ both adults. Which means you _are_ capable of talking about how you actually feel about each other."

"And what we feel is a mutual animosity."

"Which is why you kissed her a week ago, why when she was borrowing your office you decided to grope her, and why you pointedly avoid anything to do with her and you going to college together. Right, I'm sure that there's nothing there, and that there never was."

"She dated my drug dealer's roommate. She was the annoying one who was always complaining about us smoking, or drinking, or my raiding the hospital pharmacy and coming back with all sorts of fun goodies. We hated each other then, and we still do now."

"She dated a-" Wilson was trying to wrap his brain around the idea of Cuddy even going anywhere near someone of ill repute. Then again, he _had _ hired House, who was about as ill reputed as they came.

"No, she dated his roommate, there's a difference. I wouldn't buy drugs from anyone that had decided that she was somehow a great idea for a date, I'd be afraid of what they'd try to sell me, because there's no way they'd be in their right mind." Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Right, which is why you keep going after her."

"I do not keep going after her. The only thing she has going for her are her looks, and those go out the window when you turn off the lights."

"Right, of course."

"Don't you have your own life to live? Go find a fourth Mrs. Wilson, and stop bugging me about my love life, which I'm quite happy with at the moment." Wilson ignored the harsh comment, not wanting to show just how much the cut about finding a fourth woman to love and lose hurt.

"Fine, go on, keep being miserable." Wilson threw his hands up in the air, leaving to go to his own office, gears in his brain working overtime-he didn't need a fourth wife, but he counted both House and Cuddy as his friends, and they both deserved a bit of happiness, didn't they? They both deserved someone.


End file.
